Shrimps are typically gathered for marketing by means of nets which are operated by shrimp boats or by other suitable means. After the shrimps are caught they are typically stored in ice or in other conditions of cold storage until they can be transported to a shrimp processing facility. At the shrimp processing facility the shrimps may be packed in a heads on condition or in a headless condition for transportation to a marketing facility or to the ultimate consumer. It has been determined that the storage life of shrimps is approximately doubled if the heads are removed from the bodies of the shrimps immediately after the shrimps have been removed from the water. This is ordinarily not practical since most shrimp deheading machines are of such large dimension that they cannot be efficiently mounted on a typical shrimp boat. Although in many cases fresh caught shrimp are deheaded on manual operations on board shrimps boats for the purpose of enhancing the storage life thereof manual deheading operations can only be conducted if the volume of shrimp being caught is fairly low. In fact it has been determined that only approximately 10% of the shrimps being caught are manually deheaded. Further, manual deheading operations during shrimp catching and processing activities significantly enhances of the cost of the shrimps and accordingly is considered impractical. It is considered desirable to place on board shrimp boats and other such vessels a shrimp deheading machine of sufficient sufficiently small dimension and of sufficiently low cost as to be commercially available for most shrimp boats.
In a review of some of the prior patents involving shrimp processing machines the heads of the shrimps are removed from the bodies thereof by rolls or other devices that accomplish squeezing or pinching of the shrimps. Obviously pinching or squeezing of the shrimps during processing thereof can sufficiently bruise the flesh of the shrimps that the storage life thereof can be adversely affected. It is desirable therefore to provide a shrimp processing system having the capability of effecting removal of the heads of the shrimps of the bodies thereof by means other than squeezing or pinching to thus insure that the body portions of the shrimps are maintained at optimum quality during the deheading process.
Is therefore a principle feature of the present invention to provide a novel deheading machine for shrimps which is capable of receiving shrimps in random manner, properly orienting the shrimps and conveying them to a deheading station where the heads thereof are mechanically separated from the bodies by means of flexible deheading members. The shrimps may be loaded onto the conveyor by a manual loading operation or by means of loading conveyers or the like.
It is also a feature of this invention to provide a novel shrimp deheading machine that has the capability of accomplishing the grading of the shrimps simultaneously with deheading therefore.
It is an even further feature of this invention to provide a novel shrimp deheading and grading machine which may be designed to permit multiple cascaded orientation of shrimp deheading machines to insure grading a deheading of shrimps of random sizes.
It is an even further feature of this invention to provide a novel shrimp deheading and grading machine that is of sufficiently small dimension and of sufficiently low cost as to effectively facilitate utilization thereof on board most shrimp boats to thereby enable shrimp deheading and grading operations to be conducted immediately after the shrimp are caught.